Berlin, Germany, January 5, 2020 - The CEV Men's Continental Tokyo Volleyball Qualification tournament in Berlin started with a clash of the giants as France flew to a stunning 3-0 (25-21, 25-21, 25-22) win against the European champions from Serbia.
Serbia captain Nemanja Petric said after the defeat: “For sure that was not the result that we wanted, or what we expected. But France today was better, we can’t say anything different. I don’t think that the pressure of a European champion was the problem. The problem was how we played on the court. We are experienced players and we know it’s a lot of pressure in these games. We must play better.”
He also added: “For sure, now we need to win all the games if we don’t want to go out. We will think about what we did wrong today and change these things. We need to put a little bit more energy in and that’s it.”
France captain Benjamin Toniutti was happy about his team's start in the competition and said how well the match had gone. “It´s never easy to start a competition but we played really well today. We had a lot of problems during our preparation and it was hard to find our focus. But as you know there is just one spot for the Olympic Games to win, so we gave all our best to celebrate a perfect start.”
France coach Laurent Tillie agreed and credited opposite Jean Patry with an excellent performance. “I think it’s just a miracle. We had a lot of problems before the tournament. Our guys made an extraordinary good game, especially Jean Patry in the opposite position. I am really happy about the start and hope that we can continue to compete on this level.”